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[T-hawk]

Top page: http://www.ign.com/wikis/sid-meiers-civi...-the-sword

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Wiki Guide
SAMPLE MATCH PyroFalkon plays a typical match of Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, showing step-by-step how to traverse history.

Not buying it. They advertised this whole section very clearly as a guide for new players.

The rest of it is a wiki and guide, and does have useful information. But not the sample match, which is even called out right there as having its own author. I wouldn't even be surprised if PyroFalkon didn't know (or at least at the time of writing) that his tour would be incorporated into something described as a strategy guide. PyroFalkon never made any claims to be dispensing good strategy.

Fault IGN for poor site construction if you like, but I can't hold anything against PyroFalkon here. Even Slavery isn't obvious at first how good it is. (We all spent at least 12 years in school getting preached at about the evils of slavery.) Most of the gain from Slavery comes from getting settlers and workers with a better food:hammer conversion than 1:1. Understanding that requires a deep understanding of several aspects of the game, which doesn't come easy.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'm pretty sure Pyrofalkon wrote the entire thing himself, strategy guide and sample match.

Besides, it's not just slavery, but sheer lack of understanding of 4X games in general. No understanding of expanding your economy, no understanding of investment, no willingness to actually do something about your position in the game. It's like a living example of the Dunning Kruger effect.

[Sullla]

Well, I guess we'll have to disagree on this. T-Hawk is a nicer person than I am. For my money's worth, if something is posted under the heading of "strategy guide", and spends the entire first two pages discussing "The Strategy", and then spends the last page also discussing strategy... it's probably intended to be used as a strategy guide.

This one just fails hard.

[Sian]

IMO its not the "Slavery stinks" thats the worst ... the worst is that he appearently is of the opinion that Serfdom is the best thing since sliced bread, better than Caste system

... no ... scratch that ... the opinion (while walking through the leaders) that Imperialistic is worse than Protective (although he is a bit schizophrenic about imperialistic), and "Creative is the single-most powerful attribute"

... it only get worse when reading that the writer appearently gets hot and bothered by being patriotic and playing America even though they're probably the suckiest civ around (or at least a contender), while at the same time deriding France as a sucky civ since Salons comes late (NOT because salons stinks by adding Artists), and seeing Inca as an fairly average civ

[Viqsi]

I used actually believe the slavery one.....




back in the days of Civ 3 when I first started. I was younger then and was still innocent and naive.

Yeah, I used to be that naive too. Never ever ever picked Slavery ("why would I want to lose citizens?"), charged wildly towards every religion I could try for, thought it was unforgivably stupid that ROADS HAD PREREQUISITES OMFG, hated the concept of Great People and thought them a waste of time (residual bitterness from the Civ3 RNG ) and thought promotions were dumb garbage thrown in to appease folks who liked micromanagement. But even at the very start of my Civ4 days, I was pretty sure that building a Monument as a Creative civ was probably kind of silly.

And then there's the fact that it took him another border expansion to notice there was ocean to his east. This is best illustrated thusly:



Um. Hon? Y'all need a new eyeglasses prescription... )

Money quote for me: "There will be plenty of time to work the land later."

[NobleHelium]

Well, I guess we'll have to disagree on this. T-Hawk is a nicer person than I am. For my money's worth, if something is posted under the heading of "strategy guide", and spends the entire first two pages discussing "The Strategy", and then spends the last page also discussing strategy... it's probably intended to be used as a strategy guide.

This one just fails hard.

I definitely have to agree with Sulla on this one.

[Brian Shanahan]

Yeah, I used to be that naive too. Never ever ever picked Slavery ("why would I want to lose citizens?"), charged wildly towards every religion I could try for, thought it was unforgivably stupid that ROADS HAD PREREQUISITES OMFG, hated the concept of Great People and thought them a waste of time (residual bitterness from the Civ3 RNG ) and thought promotions were dumb garbage thrown in to appease folks who liked micromanagement. But even at the very start of my Civ4 days, I was pretty sure that building a Monument as a Creative civ was probably kind of silly.

Civ 3 bugbears for me were artillery and air units, as they didn't kill directly. Boy was I fick then. I also went for golden age sprouting wonders early, another big mistake.

One area where I had a legitimate grievance was the randomly disappearing resources. It really sucks to lose your only source of oil when you're half way through a tank buildup.

Money quote for me: "There will be plenty of time to work the land later."

I loved his whole explanation for building the Stele then, " I want quantity tiles over quality right now." encapsulates his mentality.
Problems
a) settlers are a better way of grabbing land by far (because you can work the land, d'oh)
b) if you're fighting culture battles with your cap, you've lost.
c) he didn't even know where Germany was at the time, so he didn't know the value of the land.
d) the idea in your quote of "plenty of time to work the land later" is just so wrong.

I'm with Sullla on this one, it is ok for a random guy (or girl) to post this kind of stuff, but for a major gaming site which purports to being informative it is a huge no-no.

[Qgqqqqq]

Well this is one big threadjack
I was really trying to talk about PBEM/PB threads, but ha well.

Agree that the article is hilarious.
Is it really that hard for IGN to find a competent reviewer?
All they need is someone from one of the decent sites RB, CFC etc. who can beat ~emperor.
I mean I don't see them going after someone like Sulla necessarily, but a quick google search would bring up CFC, and there's probably a bunch of decent Lets Play! that would work 10x better.

My comment about Civ5 is really about why that is related to this, though much of the info there would be useful for game designers.

[Deceptus]

02:09 - Narrator: SO LIKE I HAVE BARELY TOUCHED CIV 5. I DONT WANT TO GET SUCKED IN AND SHIT AND I AM ALL INTO LEAGUE AND RANDOM INDIE GAMES
02:09 - Narrator: BUT TODAY ON /R/GAMES
02:09 - Narrator: Your synopsis of Civ 5 is incredibly one-sided. You even managed to use Sulla's horribly outdated review (not slightly, but COMPLETELY), which was essentially a die-hard Civ 4 fan raging that Civ 5 wasn't Civ 4. And all the Civ 4 players seem to be forgetting that Civ 4 was absolute shit before BtS. Like most Sid Meier's games, it takes a couple of expansions for it to get up to speed as to what the previous best version was like. And get real. Anyone playing Civ 4 still isn't playing vanilla Civ 4, they're playing one of the total conversion mods that infinitely adds more depth than Civ 4 could ever dream of.
I mean you even used that terribad picture to try and sum up 1UPT, despite the fact that isn't even possible to do in-game with those variables (and never was--someone had to have modded the values in that game because he does not have enough cities to support an army that size). Unless you REALLY miss the stacks of doom and having your armies warded off because the AI has stacks of spearmen and longbowmen and you didn't bring enough tanks to outnumber his stack, 1UPT is the best feature to Civ 5.
General consensus amongst Civ fans that aren't living in the past wearing rose-colored glasses is that Civ 5 is a solid game--with G&K it's infinitely better.
02:10 - Narrator: thats what some guy wrote to some guy who was like sulla say civ 5 bad when released np
02:10 - Narrator: ok #rant
02:10 - Decorative Toaster Cozy: "And all the Civ 4 players seem to be forgetting that Civ 4 was absolute shit before BtS."
02:10 - Decorative Toaster Cozy: XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

(that's le me and PhoenixCull by the way)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1...ns/c76kr0a

[Sullla]

I'm so sick of hearing that nonsense... "Yes, Civ5 was bad when it came out, but now there have been patches/expansions and everything is so much better!" None of the underlying mechanics of the game were changed. The strategy is exactly as one-dimensional as ever: connect resources -> sell resources for gold -> spend gold on rush buys / city states / research agreements -> win game.

I'd love to write an updated article explaining the foolishness of these arguments, but then I'd have to play Civ5 again. Ugh. So no deal.